Slow Rebound Foam Padded Sports Shirt

ABSTRACT

A shirt or jersey for sports such as soccer incorporates a slow rebound foam pad to aid in controlling a ball that strikes the player.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Soccer goalkeepers wear goalkeeper jerseys and sometimes undershirts aspart of their uniforms. Often, these jerseys and undershirts havepadding around the shoulders, elbows, and along the sides, to protectthe goalkeeper from injuries due to impact/collision with the ground,goalposts, and other soccer players. Materials commonly used in thesepadded areas include yellow foam and ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) foam.Goalkeeper jerseys are commonly made of nylon, polyester or other typesof synthetic fabric. Goalkeeper undershirts are often made with elasticfabrics, and are meant to adhere closely to the skin of the wearer.These elastic goalkeeper undershirts are commonly referred to ascompression shirts.

Compression shirts and loose fitting undershirts are also commonly wornby players in American-style football, Australian rules football andrugby among other sports in which an outer jersey style overshirt isworn. In many of these sports, a player must control or catch a ballthat strikes the player in the chest. Unfortunately there have been nojerseys, undershirts or compression shirts available that include aneffective aid in controlling such balls.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present disclosure provides a novel chest pad attached to orincorporated into the chest area of a jersey, loose undershirt orcompression undershirt to help goalkeepers or other players gain controlof balls that hit their chests. The novel chest pad is effective toreduce the velocity of a rebounding ball after its impact with the chestwhile providing protection against impact and abrasion. The slow-reboundfoam layer has the property that once compressed, it returns to itspre-compression state slowly relative to other foams. In the context ofcatching or controlling a soccer ball, this slow-rebound propertyreduces the foam's pressure on the rebounding ball, thus decreasing itsrebounding velocity and allowing a player to catch or control the ballmore easily, especially hard shots. A soccer field player wearing ashirt with the chest pad may also find it helpful for trapping soccerballs with their chest. While the application of a slow-rebound chestpad described here is directed primarily to soccer, this concept can beapplied to any sports where catching or gaining control of the ball isrequired, including but not limited to American football, Australianrules football, rugby, and baseball.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

The following drawing forms part of the present specification and isincluded to further demonstrate certain aspects of the presentdisclosure. The disclosure may be better understood by reference to thedrawing in combination with the detailed description of specificembodiments presented herein.

FIG. 1 is an illustration of a long-sleeve compression shirt with anintegrated slow rebound foam pad on the chest. Foams for protectionagainst impacts or abrasion are also shown in the elbow, shoulder andrib areas.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present disclosure arises at least in part from a need for improvedball control for soccer goalkeepers, soccer field players, footballplayers, or players in any other sport where a fast rebounding ballhampers a player's ability to catch or gain control of the ball. Thisneed is particularly evident in soccer goalkeeper play in which a ballrebounding from a goalkeeper's chest can be played by an opponent intothe goal.

The present disclosure provides, therefore, equipment including a shirt,chest protector, overshirt, undershirt, jersey, or other equipment orclothing in which a player has a need to control a ball that strikes theplayer's chest during course of play. The slow rebound foam pads of thepresent disclosure provide this advantage without restricting movement,or preventing dissipation of body heat. The positioning of a chest padon a shirt, for example, can be anywhere from below the neck to abovethe waist and is positioned in the most likely place for a ball tostrike the player in a particular sport.

In certain embodiments the pads are composed of one or more foam layers,at least one layer of which is open-cell viscoelastic polyurethane orother foam materials with similar properties. An example of such foam ismarketed by Rogers Corporation (Rogers, Conn.) as Poron® Slow ReboundFoam. The thickness of the slow rebound foam layer can be anyappropriate thickness for the sport, level of play or age of the wearer,for example, and in certain embodiments includes one or more layers offrom 1 mm to 7 mm inclusive, depending on the amount of reboundabsorption required. The durometer of a slow rebound foam can be withinthe range of 8 to 18. The slow-rebound foam's time to recovery to 90% ofpre-compression thickness is between 0.3 to 0.8 seconds. The compressionforce deflection of the foam is between 0.3 to 10 psi. The foam can belaminated to other layers of fabric, foam or other sheet material toincrease durability or to optimize the impact absorption properties of achest pad. The foam can also be perforated with holes to improve heatrelease or ventilation.

It is an aspect of the present disclosure that sports shirts orequipment incorporating a slow rebound foam pad can include other paddedareas for impact protection. In certain embodiments, particularly for asoccer shirt, additional padded areas can include one or more of theelbows, ribs and shoulders. For other sports, such as American football,padding can also be included on at least one of the back, kidney andabdomen areas. The thickness of each padded area will depend on thesport or player position of the user. An example of a soccer shirt witha chest pad as described is shown in FIG. 1. Foams for protectionagainst impacts or abrasion are also shown in the elbow, shoulder andrib areas

In a test to determine the effect on shot absorption of the slow reboundfoam, a steel ball of about 0.5 inch diameter and weighing approximately50 grams was dropped through a tube onto the control foam material andthe test material (slow rebound) from a height of approximately 1 meter.The ball dropped on the control rebounded to at least 14 inches while anidentical ball dropped on the test material rebounded only about 6inches, or about half the height of the control. This demonstrates thesuperior shot absorption of the test material.

All of the articles, compositions and/or methods disclosed and claimedherein can be made and executed without undue experimentation in lightof the present disclosure. While the systems, compositions and methodsof this disclosure have been described in terms of certain embodiments,it will be apparent to those of skill in the art that variations may beapplied to the systems, compositions and/or methods and in the steps orin the sequence of steps of the method described herein withoutdeparting from the concept, spirit and scope of the disclosure. Morespecifically, it will be apparent that certain physical structures maybe substituted for the physical structures described herein and the sameor similar results would be achieved. All such similar substitutes andmodifications apparent to those skilled in the art are deemed to bewithin the spirit, scope and concept of the disclosure as defined by theappended claims.

1. A sports shirt comprising an integrated pad, the pad comprising oneor more slow-rebound foam layers affixed to one or more areas of theshirt.
 2. The sports shirt of claim 1, wherein a slow-rebound foam layeris affixed to the chest area of the shirt.
 3. The sports shirt of claim1, wherein the one or more slow-rebound foam layer comprises open cellviscoelastic polyurethane.
 4. The sports shirt of claim 1, wherein theat least 50% of the pad coverage area has a thickness of from 1 mm to 7mm.
 5. The sports shirt of claim 1, further defined as a goalkeeper'sjersey, a soccer jersey, a football jersey, a rugby jersey, anundershirt or a compression shirt.
 6. The sports shirt of claim 1,wherein the slow rebound foam has a durometer of from 8 to
 18. 7. Thesports shirt of claim 1, wherein the slow rebound foam exhibits a timeto recovery to 90% of pre-compression thickness of between 0.3 to 0.8seconds.
 8. The sports shirt of claim 1, wherein the compression forcedeflection of the foam is in the range of 0.3 and 10 psi inclusive. 9.The sports shirt of claim 1, further comprising a protective foam layeraffixed to one or more of the elbow, rib, shoulder, back, kidney andabdomen areas of the shirt.
 10. An article of sports equipmentcomprising one or more layers of open cell viscoelastic polyurethaneslow-rebound foam effective to reduce ball rebound speed of a ballstriking the one or more layers.
 11. A soccer goalkeeper's shirtcomprising one or more layers of open cell viscoelastic polyurethaneslow-rebound foam attached to or incorporated into the chest area of theshirt.
 12. The sports shirt of claim 11, wherein the at least 50% of thepad coverage area has a thickness of from 1 mm to 7 mm.
 13. The sportsshirt of claim 11, wherein the slow rebound foam has a durometer of from8 to
 18. 14. The sports shirt of claim 11, wherein the slow rebound foamexhibits a time to recovery to 90% of pre-compression thickness ofbetween 0.3 to 0.8 seconds.
 15. The sports shirt of claim 11, whereinthe compression force deflection of the foam is in the range of 0.3 and10 psi inclusive.
 16. The sports shirt of claim 11, further comprising aprotective foam layer affixed to one or more of the elbow, rib,shoulder, back, kidney and abdomen areas of the shirt.